Interface MattersPostphenomenological Perspectives on Service Design

Fernando Secomandi

Interface Matters Postphenomenological Perspectives on Service Design

Fernando Secomandi

Copyright 2012 by Fernando Secomandi

Digital versionCover and book design by Alice Bodanzky and Fernando Secomandi

ISBN 978-90-9027226-9

Interface MattersPostphenomenological Perspectives on Service Design

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor

aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben,

voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,

in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 11 december 2012 om 10.00 uur

door

Fernando Del Caro SECOMANDI

Ingenieur Industrieel Ontwerpen

geboren te Rio de Janeiro, Brazilië.

Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor:Prof.dr. P.G. Badke-Schaub

Copromotor:Dr. H.M.J.J. Snelders

Samenstelling promotiecommissie:

Rector Magnificus, voorzitterProf.dr. P.G. Badke-Schaub, Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Dr. H.M.J.J. Snelders, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, copromotorProf.dr.ir. P.M.A. Desmet, Technische Universiteit DelftProf.dr. H.J. Hultink, Technische Universiteit DelftEm.prof.dr. D. Ihde, Stony Brook UniversityProf.dr.ir. P.A. Kroes, Technische Universiteit DelftDr. L. Patrício, Universidade do PortoProf.dr. P.J. Stappers, Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid

This thesis was partly financed by the NHTV Internationaal Hoger Onderwijs Breda.

Contents

List of Figures, viiPreface, ixAcknowledgements, xi

Chapter 1Introduction, 13Chapter 2Interface Design in Services: A Postphenomenological Approach, 39Chapter 3Creating Healthy Clients: The Use of Philips DirectLife, 55Chapter 4Visualizations in Service Design Practice: The Case of Philips DirectLife, 81Chapter 5The Matter of Human-to-Human Interfaces: Design in the Service Factory, 119Chapter 6Conclusion and Discussion, 145

Bibliography, 155Summary, 163Samenvating, 165About the Author, 167

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Shostack’s molecular model, 17Figure 1.2. Edvardsson and Olsson’s frame of reference, 19Figure 1.3. Ramaswamy’s restaurant service process, 23Figure 1.4. Gallouj and Weinstein’s characteristics model, 25Figure 3.1. The DirectLife service interfaces, 61Figure 3.2. Screenshot of the dashboard interface, 65Figure 3.3. Screenshot of the dashboard’s activity history tab, 68Figure 3.4. Screenshot of the history view interface, 71Figure 4.1. Screenshot of the goal adjustment interface implemented in the website, 89Figure 4.2. Wireframe visualization of the goal adjustment interface, 91Figure 4.3. Flowchart visualization of the goal adjustment interface, 93Figure 4.4. First demo of the goal adjustment interface, 97Figure 4.5. Second demo of the goal adjustment interface, 98Figure 4.6. Third demo of the goal adjustment interface, 100Figure 4.7. Numbered visualization of the goal adjustment interface’s pop-up, 103Figure 4.8. Dynamic texts of the goal adjustment interface’s pop-up, 104Figure 4.9. Flash codes of the goal adjustment interface, 108Figure 4.10. Demo server visualization of the goal adjustment interface (in Dutch), 109Figure 4.11. Track ticket of a bug in the goal adjustment interface undergoing testing, 111Figure 4.12. Screenshot of a bug in the goal adjustment interface undergoing testing, 112Figure 5.1. Presentation of the Prezi slideshow performed by me, 124Figure 5.2. Audience comprising the staff of the Department of General Practice, 125Figure 5.3. Summary of the Prezi slideshow, 126-128Figure 5.4. Invitation token for the Join Our Family program, 129

ix

Preface

Service design has attracted great attention in recent years and given

rise to numerous questions for the design community; one of the most

fundamental concerns the definition of its object. What do designers

design when creating new or improved services? The present thesis seeks answers to this question by focusing on the materiality of the

service interface. In what follows, the service interface is discussed from

different perspectives and portrayed in its various guises. Although the

arguments developed throughout the six chapters are interconnected,

each chapter is intended as a separate essay that initiates new dialogues

with the budding academic discourse on service design, pursuing original

contributions of its own.

The appreciation for the materiality of services, probably instigated

by my previous training as a designer and the long days (and nights) spent

in the workshop, has been deepened in the last years through readings in

the philosophy of technology, in an area known as postphenomenology.

Progressively, my thinking and writing on the topic of service design

became so much influenced by postphenomenology that its inclusion in

the subtitle of this thesis is warranted.

Besides this bent of mine, which might make the analyses presented

here of interest to some philosophers of technology, the audience of this

thesis is primarily thought of as comprising researchers and practitioners

in the broad field of industrial design, and secondarily, anyone holding

a special motivation to study the emerging discipline of service design.

xi

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who provided me with great support in

producing this thesis: my supervisors, Petra Badke-Schaub and Dirk

Snelders (with extension to Erik Jan Hultink, who co-supervised

this PhD project in the first years), for nurturing my development as

a researcher and for collaborating with me on several publications;

Jennifer Dowdeswell, Tom Rademaker, Joep Rous, and the staff of

Philips DirectLife, as well as Miriam de Groot, Babette Doorn, and

members of the Service Science Factory, for generously cooperating with

my empirical studies; Don Ihde, for warmly welcoming me as an invited

researcher at Stony Brook University; Diane Nijs, of the Imagineering

Academy, for enabling the financial support of the NHTV Breda; Simon

Bolton and Gabriel Patrocínio (Center for Competitive Creative Design),

Rodolfo Capeto (Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial), Paul Nini,

Bruno Ribeiro and Elizabeth Sanders (Ohio State University), and Mikko

Koria (Aalto University School of Economics), for inviting me to lecture

or present my work at their institutions; Vera Blazevic, Gui Bonsiepe,

Carla Cipolla, Pieter Desmet, Gabriela Goldschmidt, Lucy Kimbell, Nelly

Oudshoorn, Oscar Person, Robert Rosenberger, Nynke Tromp, Peter-

Paul Verbeek, and the editors and (blind) reviewers of various periodicals

and conferences, for commenting on my academic production; Giulia

Calabretta, Jaap Daalhuijzen, Joel Kuntonen, and Josien Pieters, for

translating, transcribing, or proofreading parts of this thesis; colleagues

at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, in especial, the co-

ordinators and students of the courses I have taught, for creating a

pleasurable yet serious work environment; my parents, for withstanding

the longing that no amount of Internet-enabled contact between Holland

and Brazil may quench; and Alice, for often impressing me with precious

remarks about my research just over dinner—but, above all, for her love

and companionship.

13

Chapter 1Introduction1

Judging from the recent proliferation of dedicated networks, conferences,

courses, consultancies, periodicals, books, tools, technical jargon, gurus

and smart mobs, industrial design has finally discovered services! And

this is nothing less than timely. Although service design has received

some scholarly attention at least since the early 1980’s, especially in the

field of marketing, it remains one of the least explored areas of service

research. Throughout the past decades, several researchers have voiced

their concern with the limited state of knowledge on service design,

calling for more attention to be directed to the area.2 The general feeling

was best encapsulated in Gummesson’s (1994, 85) assertion that “there

is no general methodology for designing services; there is no profession

called service designers.”

Eighteen years later, this state of affairs has begun to change, and

it is possible to affirm that the design community has made significant

strides to make service design a discipline on its own. As reviews of the

emerging discipline have already been published elsewhere,3 it suffices

to note here some of its milestones, even if knowing that any attempt to

portray a rapidly evolving field is bound to suffer from incompleteness.4

1. Chapter based on Secomandi and Snelders (2011).

2. E.g., Fisk, Brown, and Bitner (1993, 88); Ganz and Meiren (2002, 21–22); Ostrom et al. (2010, 17–19); Papastathopoulou and Hultink (2012, 713); Patrício, Fisk, and Falcão e Cunha (2008, 320–321); Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (1990, 157–160).

3. E.g., Blomkvist, Holmlid, and Segelström (2011); Pacenti and Sangiorgi (2010); Saco and Goncalvez (2008); Wetter Edman (2011, 59–70).

4. Publications in leading design periodicals (e.g., Mager and Sung 2011; Morelli 2003; Pinhanez 2009); research groups and programs (e.g., SEDES Research, at the Köln International School of Design, Germany; CRISP Platform, a nationally funded program led by the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; DESIS Lab, based at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro—Coppe, Brazil); post-graduate dissertations and theses (e.g., Blomkvist 2011; Moritz 2005; Sangiorgi 2004; Segelström 2010; Wetter Edman 2011); educational programs (e.g., BFA and MFA degrees in Service Design offered by the Savannah College of Art and Design, USA; Master in Service and Experience Design, run by

INTERFACE MATTERS14

One of the recurring topics in the forming discipline of service design

concerns the definition of its object matter. Over the past years, several

researchers have suggested that service designers manipulate the various

interfaces—sometimes called “touchpoints”— between service providers and clients, including material artifacts, environments, interpersonal

encounters, and more.5 But with a few exceptions that will be examined

later in this thesis, the conceptualization of the service interface from a

design perspective has been the topic of scant debate. Typically, the origin

of the concept is traced back to the notion of tangible evidence introduced in Shostack’s (1977) seminal writings in marketing. Unfortunately, as

argued below, such a portrayal of interfaces places service design on

the wrong track, because it turns the contribution of service designers

into a peripheral activity—namely, that of “accessorizing” an essentially

intangible relation between service providers and their clients.

The lack of clarity over the object of service design is aggravated by

the superficial treatment in design scholarship of the alternative concepts

and theories found in the service literature. In addition to Shostack,

researchers from multiple backgrounds have proposed conceptual

handles for thinking about services in the context of their development,

commercialization, and use. However, their contributions are sometimes

ignored and left scattered across the literature, often obscured by different

disciplinary discourses.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to analyze the various

service models proposed in the literature, in order to locate and ground

the object of service design in the broader field of academic research on

services. In doing so, the intention is not simply to introduce the central

theme of this thesis (i.e., the service interface), but also to frame this

the Domus Academy, Italy); professional networks (e.g., Service Design Network); service design consultancies (e.g., live|work and Engine, Great Britain); international conferences (e.g., Emergence 2007, USA; International Service Innovation Design Conference 2008, South Korea; Service Design Network Conference 2008, The Netherlands; ServDes 2009, Oslo); books and chapters in edited books (e.g., Hollins and Hollins 1991; Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011; Moggridge 2007; Stickdorn and Schneider 2011); and other Internet-based resources (e.g., Jeff Howard’s blog “Design for Service,” available from: http://designforservice.wordpress.com, accessed August 17, 2012).

5. E.g., Clatworthy (2011); Mager (2004, 53–56); Moggridge (2007, 422); Moritz (2005, 39–41); Pacenti (2004).

15INTRODUCTION

presentation in a critical dialogue with the reviewed literature. As a result,

I hope to set a background understanding against which to position the

arguments developed in the subsequent chapters of this thesis. At the end

of this introductory analysis, the remainder of the thesis will be outlined.

A Literature Review of Service ModelsWhat follows is an introduction to the alternative service models

discussed in the literature from distinct disciplinary perspectives. The

exposition is based on an extensive survey of academic publications on

services and is organized in four subsections, roughly corresponding

to the disciplines of service marketing, management, engineering, and

economics. The purpose is not to provide an exhaustive overview of all

the literature consulted, but to focus on original contributions that can

impart knowledge about the topic of interest and are widely applicable

across service sectors. As such, there is a certain bias in the selection

toward older publications over recent restatements of comparable ideas.

Where appropriate, commentaries about related work are added as notes.

The service models of Shostack (1977), Edvardsson and Olsson

(1996), Ramaswamy (1996), and Gallouj and Weinstein (1997) will be

presented below separately, in an attempt to preserve their internal

coherence and conceptual integrity. The descriptions thus remain

observant of the authors’ intentions and terminologies. However, this

approach should not be taken to mean full endorsement of each of these

conceptual frameworks. Rather, the goal is to explain these frameworks

in sufficient depth, and to invite readers to reflect upon a number of

received views on services and design. While doing so, special features

of these texts are highlighted, which are pivotal to the argumentation

developed in the section that follows, where the content introduced here

will be interpreted in order to more explicitly address the question of the

object of service design.

Shostack’s Evidence In Breaking Free from Product Marketing, Shostack (1977) claimed that marketing’s disregard for services could be attributed to an inability

to deal with their intangible nature. According to her, services are

INTERFACE MATTERS16

impalpable and non-corporeal and therefore “cannot be touched, tried

on for size, or displayed on a shelf” (Shostack 1977, 75). The “dynamic,

subjective, and ephemeral” nature of intangible elements in services is

what prevents them from being described as precisely as products. The

introduction of the molecular modeling approach, illustrated in Figure

1.1, was intended to provide a framework for dealing with the marketing

of intangibles.

In a molecular model, goods and services are represented as

combinations of discrete tangible or intangible elements, with their

identity being determined by the relative dominance of each type of

element.6 Shostack argued that most goods and services lie along a

continuum from tangible-dominant to intangible-dominant. In Figure

1.1, for instance, automobiles would be deemed products because they

are mainly physical objects with tangible options and extras; even so,

they also have a service dimension, as they incorporate the intangible

element of transportation, which may be marketed independently. On

the other hand, airlines can be identified as service providers because of

the preponderance of intangible elements.

Although intangible elements are the defining features of services

for marketers, Shostack also realized they do not represent their total

“reality” for consumers. She argued that because of their abstractness,

consumers cannot experience services directly, but can only do so through

peripheral tangible clues, or evidence. She therefore defined service evidence as comprising everything “the consumer can comprehend with

his five senses” (Shostack 1977, 77). In the airlines example in Figure 1.1,

this evidence includes the aircraft, advertising, tickets, food and drinks,

and other such items. Moreover, staff often stands as the main evidence of

services because the way they dress and speak, their hairstyles, demeanor,

etc., “can have a material impact on the consumer’s perception” (Shostack

6. In the complete molecular model, Shostack later included three outer layers representing strategic marketing decisions about distribution, price and cost, and advertising and promotion (1982, 49–63). Along similar lines, Booms and Bitner sought to expand the traditional 4P marketing framework (product, place, promotion, and price), by incorporating three novel elements (people, process, and physical evidence) into an upgraded 7P marketing mix for services (1981, 47–51). Also consider Lovelock and Wright’s addition of an eighth “P” representing service productivity and quality) (1999, 18–20).

17

1982, 53). Because service evidence is so important, Shostack believed

that it “must be [as] carefully designed and managed as the service itself”

(1982, 52).

Shostack distinguished between two types of service evidence:

peripheral and essential (1982, 51–52). Peripheral evidence refers to the tangible elements consumers can possess but that have little value

independently, such as tickets for airline services. In contrast, essential evidence, such as an aircraft, has an important role in the evaluation of

the services purchased but cannot be owned by consumers. Although

essential evidence was paramount in Shostack’s conception of services,

she considered such evidence to represent “quasi-product elements” that

could not have the status of true tangible elements because, as such, they

would have been evidence of goods rather than services (1982, 52).

Service evidence came to play an important role in the development

of “service blueprinting,” a flowchart technique to aid in systematic service

design (Shostack 1982; Shostack 1984). In service blueprints, items of

tangible evidence usually become departure points for mapping “hidden”

production activities that are internal to companies and beyond direct

customer contact, or in Shostack’s words, below their “line of visibility”

(1984, 138). Shostack’s work on service blueprinting, which is not detailed

here, ran alongside the growing focus of her thoughts on the notion of

process, which she eventually saw as the service equivalent of a product’s “raw materials” (Shostack 1987). Nonetheless, even as her views on the

automobile (product) airline (service)

optionsand

extrasvehicle

transpor-tation

transpor-tation

pre/postflight

service

in-flightservice

servicefrequency

aircraft

foodand

drink

advertising

ticket uniforms

Figure 1.1. Shostack’s molecular model. Circles represent intangible elements; squares represent tangible elements; dotted squares represent essential evidence; and peripheral evidence is scattered around the other elements.

INTERFACE MATTERS18

role of service design centered more and more on blueprinting processes,

Shostack still maintained that companies should always “incorporate the

orchestration of tangible evidence” (1984, 136).7

Edvardsson and Olsson’s Prerequisites Edvardsson and Olsson’s (1996) service conception is an amalgam of

views commonly circulating in the broad area of service management

studies. These authors were concerned that the quality shortcomings

faced by many companies were “built into” their services at an earlier

design phase. In response, they sought to develop a frame of reference for

new service development that would help companies to improve service

quality by design.

According to Edvardsson and Olsson, the service construct

comprises three elements, as seen in the left side of Figure 1.2. In the

first place, there is the customer outcome, or what customers perceive and value as the result of service production. Customer outcomes can

be tangible or intangible, temporary or lasting. A haircut would be a

tangible, temporary outcome for customers, whereas an insurance

policy would represent an intangible and lasting outcome. Customer

outcomes are formed by customer processes on the one hand and service

prerequisites on the other. Customer processes refers to the active participation of customers in production processes, which Edvardsson

and Olsson saw as a distinctive characteristic of services as opposed to

goods.8 Customer processes do not exist in a vacuum but depend on the

service prerequisites, which are the resources needed to make the service possible. By engaging in production processes, customers use service

7. Several scholars later adopted the notion of service evidence in their own service models. Worth briefly mentioning are Berry and Parasuraman’s (1991, 93–115) identification of physical environment, communications, and price as crucial kinds of evidence, and Bitner’s (1993) similar reference to people, process, and physical evidence. More recently, the use of terms like “clues” by Pullman and Gross (2004) and “touchpoints” by Zomerdijk and Voss (2010) conveyed Shostack’s notion of evidence from an experience design perspective.

8. Other researchers have also regarded higher levels of customer involvement in production processes to be the most important variable in characterizing service operations and in setting strategic directions for the design of service systems. See, e.g., Chase (1978); Pinhanez (2009); Sampson and Froehle (2006); Wemmerlöv (1990).

19

prerequisites and coproduce outcomes for themselves. Edvardsson

and Olsson thus argued for understanding services from a customer

perspective: “It is the customer’s total perception of the outcome which

‘is the service’… what the customer does not perceive does not exist—is

not a customer outcome” (1996, 145).

If outcomes can represent the whole service for customers,

Edvardsson and Olsson held that prerequisites were closely associated

with the company perspective: “the service company does not provide

the service but the prerequisites for various services” (1996, 147).

They organized new service development activities around the three

prerequisite components: service concept, service process, and service

customeroutcome

serviceprerequisites

customerprocess

service concept

service process

service system

coreservices

supportingservices

primaryneeds

secondaryneeds

act. 1 act. 2 act. 3

organizationand control

staff

customers

physicalenvironment

Figure 1.2. Edvardsson and Olsson’s frame of reference. Prerequisites for new service development are detailed.

INTERFACE MATTERS20

system (see Figure 1.2, right side).9 The service concept10 is a brief description of the service package11 (core and supporting services) that

answers different customer needs (primary and secondary). It is the

departure point for specifying all other prerequisites. The service process represents the chain of activities necessary for service production.

Edvardsson and Olsson explained that the service process is a prototype

for the activation of customer processes upon each unique customer encounter. Finally, the service system comprises the following resources that the service process requires to realize the service concept: company

staff, customers, physical/technical environment, and organization and

control.12

It is at the level of service system resources that Edvardsson

and Olsson address service development activities in more detail. They

considered company staff to be a key resource because many services depend on the tangible encounter between the staff and customers.

Companies should aim to have motivated, knowledgeable, and committed

staff, partly by devising attractive jobs and hiring and training the staff

9. Elsewhere, Edvardsson (1995) named the service process and system components the “servuction” process and system. Servuction is a term combining the words “service” and “production” that was invented to denote the simultaneity of production and consumption in services. In line with the original servuction system, customers interact with the “visible” part of a service organization, which consists of the physical environment, contact personnel, other customers, and customers in person (Langeard et al. 1981).

10. The service concept is a term commonly encountered in the literature. Clark et al. (1999) presented an elaboration of the service concept in terms of value, form and function, experience, and outcomes. For an overview, see Goldstein et al. (2002).

11. The service package, sometimes called “bundle” or “offering,” is a multifaceted concept. Lovelock (1992) proposed a basic separation between core and supplementary services, to which Lovelock and Wirtz (2006, 22–25) later added delivery processes. Grönroos (1990, 71–91) departed from this conception of a basic package and described an augmented service offering. In a second line of thought, Sasser et al. (1978, 8–14) and Fitzsimmons and Sullivan (1982, 15–29) defined the package as comprising physical items and facilities, sensual benefits (or explicit services), and psychological benefits (or implicit services). Normann (2001, 75–88) further synthesized these latter insights with the previous separation between core and supplementary services. The service package was also considered in other hybrid conceptualizations, such as Lehtinen’s (1986, 26–51) service consumption process and Grönroos’s (1990, 207–214) service production system.

12. Service culture was later added by Edvardsson et al. (2000, 45–53) as a fifth component of the service system. Another version of the service system briefly contemplated some external influencing factors (Edvardsson 1997).

21INTRODUCTION

properly. Second, customers themselves could take part as prerequisites of the service system by contributing their own knowledge, equipment,

and capacity to assimilate information. According to Edvardsson and

Olsson, the service system should be designed to facilitate the engagement

of customers in coproducing the outcome. Marketing could also help to

establish relations between companies and their customers, for instance,

through the design of invoices and information materials. The third

resource, the physical/technical environment, pointed to the organization of the facilities, equipment, and other technical systems located on the

service company’s own premises or those of its suppliers and customers.

Finally, organization and control involved several activities: putting in place administrative systems to support planning, information exchange,

finance, and resource allocation. Furthermore, the company’s interaction

with customers and other partners needed to be controlled by planning

such aspects as how to gather feedback and how to handle complaints. In

addition, the company should also consider its organizational structure,

with proper definition of roles, responsibilities, and authority.

Ramaswamy’s Processes Ramaswamy (1996) turned to the key notion of process, making it

the centerpiece of a comprehensive framework for the design and

management of services. His framework is so methodical and formalized

that it can be seen as a forerunner to several service engineering

approaches.13 From his elaborate work, the stages of conceptualizing

and detailing new service processes for implementation are highlighted,

because these phases are particularly relevant for designers.

For Ramaswamy, services are fundamentally “nonphysical”

entities (1996, 13). A service process is a sequence of activities that

provide functions, chronologically organized as a unity. A process may

be further divided into smaller sub-processes and sub-subprocesses, and

13. Although notable differences hold true, other researchers also took process, or “activity,” as the main building block of their service models, often drawing on knowledge from such areas as mechanical engineering, systems engineering and computer science, and progressing toward more consistent notation, mathematical formalization, and computational modelling. See, e.g., Arai and Shimomura (2004); Ma, Tseng, and Yen (2002); Patrício, Fisk, and Falcão e Cunha (2008); Qiu (2009).

INTERFACE MATTERS22

is organized hierarchically, so that a higher level process is completely

assembled from its component sub-processes. Service processes

comprise two sorts of activities: service operations activities, which reflect the steps needed by service providers to transform inputs into

outputs, and customer service activities, representing the interactions between customers and service providers. An ideal service process begins

with input from customers and ends with “visible” output for them

(Ramaswamy 1996, 128).

Figure 1.3 (left side) presents a sample breakdown of a restaurant

service process, beginning with the arrival of guests and ending when they

leave the establishment. Note how the ordering process (second row, left

side) consists of customer service activities, represented by customers’

receipt of the menu and their meals, as well as service operations activities

related to meal preparation in the kitchen.

Ramaswamy claimed that the functions of a new service process

should be approached as problems guiding the design of solutions. In

his systematic framework, solutions for new processes evolve from broad

concepts, associated with larger processes, to detailed components related

to progressively smaller sub-processes. Figure 1.3 (right side) illustrates

three sub-processes of the ordering process: menu reading and ordering,

availability verification, and order validation and correction. According to

Ramaswamy, solutions for the sub-processes may be devised by altering

key design dimensions, or the “characteristics that can be manipulated to influence the performance of the design” (1996, 173). In his example of

a computer-assisted ordering process (middle column, right side), these

dimensions included the screen display format, menu display interval,

verification procedure, and validation method.

Specifying design dimensions in different ways results in various

solution alternatives, as enumerated below each design dimension mentioned above. However, for Ramaswamy the configuration of a new

service process should be finalized only after iterative cycles of evaluation

and refinement of solution alternatives. As a result of the final, most

detailed design step, one optimal process solution is specified in terms

of the engineering requirements (last column to the right) needed to create the process, including items such as “the response requirements

23

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INTERFACE MATTERS24

of hardware, the look of a menu or screen, the contents of a script to

be followed by an employee, or the dimensions and weights of parts”

(Ramaswamy 1996, 251). This information, according to Ramaswamy,

“is used by the implementation team members who are responsible for

constructing the service.” In other words, engineering requirements

guide “the steps that are needed to transform the design—which, so far,

is a set of decisions on paper—into a working service” (Ramaswamy 1996,

258).14

Gallouj and Weinstein’s Characteristics This final subsection covers a service model from the field of economics—

more precisely, the work of Gallouj and Weinstein (1997). Noting how

extant research overly privileged the manufacturing of goods, these

authors sought to develop foundations for the analysis of innovation

activity in the service sector. Their approach begins with the idea

that a service seldom exists autonomously. The authors see in this an

important difference from a good, which upon production typically

assumes a physical independence from its producers and consumers:

“[A service] is intangible and does not have the same exteriority [of a

good]… it is identical in substance with those who produce it and with

those who consume it” (Gallouj and Weinstein 1997, 540). For them,

this condition underlies many of the peculiarities commonly associated

with the production of services, such as the necessary cooperation

between providers and clients, the difficulty in standardizing something

dynamic and multifaceted, and the confusion between product (“what” is delivered) and process (“how” it is delivered). Gallouj and Weinstein’s formal representation of services in terms of characteristic sets is shown in Figure 1.4.

Gallouj and Weinstein’s characteristics model consists of four

interacting sets. Set [Y], on the right, represents the service characteristics. These are characteristics of services as seen from the user’s point

14. Kaner and Karni (2007) also conceptualized services as hierarchical systems ultimately defined by the values given to their lowest-layer components. Their capstone model is a comprehensive, five-tiered service representation consisting of 9 major classes (including process), 75 main classes, 351 minor classes, and potentially thousands of attributes and values.

25

of view—in other words, the utilities provided by services to clients.

Examples include the user-friendliness and the deposit and withdrawal

functionalities of an automated teller machine. Set [X] represents the

technical characteristics that supply service characteristics, which can be divided into tangible technical characteristics (e.g., information technologies, logistic technologies, chemical products in cleaning

services, etc.) and intangible technical characteristics (e.g., financial models, business execution methods, etc.). According to Gallouj and

Weinstein, technical characteristics can also be divided into product and process characteristics by referring to the interface between providers and clients. Thus, product technical characteristics would refer to “front-office” production activities in close proximity to customers, while

process technical characteristics would be the “back-office” activities that do not entail direct customer contact. Although the authors believed in

the validity of this distinction, in the end they assumed that both product

(front-office) and process (back-office) technical characteristics could be

tangible or intangible, and could all be bundled in the same set [X].15

Gallouj and Weinstein further added competence characteristics as a way to separate technical characteristics from human capabilities.

Set [C], according to the authors, represents provider knowledge and

skills embodied in individuals (or clearly delimited teams), which are

not easily dissociable from the people themselves and therefore cannot

15. Gallouj (2002, 53) also briefly included in the same set spatial and geographical organization characteristics (e.g., restaurant décor, proximity of service establishment, etc.)

competencecharacteristics

(C1, C2, C3, ... Cq)

client competencecharacteristics

(C’1, C’2, C’3, ... C’q)

service characteristics

(Y1, Y2, Y3, ... Yq)

technical characteristics

(X1, X2, X3, ... Xq)

Figure 1.4. Gallouj and Weinstein’s characteristics model.

INTERFACE MATTERS26

exist autonomously or become part of organizational knowledge. To

highlight coproduction by clients as a major feature of services, Gallouj

and Weinstein added client competence characteristics (set [C’]), representing knowledge that is embodied in clients.

The complete model provides an integrative rationale for service

production: Service (Y) characteristics are obtained by the direct

application of competence characteristics of providers (C) and/or clients

(C’), in combination with mobilized technical (X) characteristics {[C], [C’],

[X], [Y]}. The model takes account of a particular class of “pure” services,

such as consulting or massage therapy services. In such cases, providers

and clients coproduce service characteristics without the involvement of

any technical means {[C], [C’], [Y]}.16 However, Gallouj (2002, 56) later

observed that the use of even unsophisticated technologies (e.g., a towel

for the massage therapist) could represent an intervention of technical

characteristics.

Based on the characteristics model, Gallouj and Weinstein

operationalized service innovation as “any change affecting one or more

terms of one or more vectors of characteristics (of whatever kind—

technical, service, or competence)” (1997, 547). The authors noted that

innovative changes might “emerge” as a result of “natural learning

mechanisms,” but they might also be “programmed,” or “intentional, the

product of R&D, design, and innovation activity.” Unfortunately, they

did not explain how intentional innovation could be attained specifically

through the manipulation of characteristics sets.17

16. Based on the model, the authors also describe self-service situations, where service characteristics are created through the client’s engagement with technical characteristics alone, without the participation of the provider competence characteristics {[C’], [X], [Y]}. In another publication, Gallouj (2002, 59) further identified “pure” goods situations, where there is no involvement of competences embodied in humans {[X], [Y]}.

17. In recent years, other authors have elaborated on the characteristics approach to service innovation. De Vries (2006) noted how Gallouj and Weinstein’s model falls short when representing innovation in a network of organizations, where clients coproduce a service by using their own technologies. He reformulated both the technical and competence characteristics sets to account for multiple organizations, and added the novel client technical characteristics set. Windrum and García-Goñi (2008), writing in the context of health care, also pointed to the need for representing innovation in a multi-agent environment, including policy-makers as new stakeholders alongside providers and users. They further diminished the importance of technical characteristics, proposing instead that innovation in knowledge-

27INTRODUCTION

The Object of Service DesignHaving introduced representative service models in the extant academic

literature, in this section I articulate a conceptual framework from which

to approach the design object in services. Whereas previously each model

was described separately, now I adopt an interpretive stance that engages

with that same material at once. The conclusion builds up progressively

in the following subsections.

Exchange Relations One of the most fundamental aspects of service production is the

intertwining of stakeholders—most notably, providers and clients—in

exchange relations. As Gallouj and Weinstein noted, services are not

easily set apart from providers and clients as an independent entity;

they seem to exist to a substantial degree within this context of economic

exchange. Edvardsson and Olsson, as well as Ramaswamy, also point out

the necessary involvement of customers in service coproduction. Even

when left implicit, as in the case of Shostack, exchange relations are

presumed in the recurrent references to both marketers and consumers.

Exchange relations establish the context for attributing particular

roles to the stakeholders involved in service coproduction. Typically,

providers devise and market new services; clients purchase and use them.

Furthermore, an investigation of the circumstances of exchange relations

reveals a host of sociotechnical resources that are required for service

coproduction by providers and clients. For Gallouj and Weinstein, service

innovation could be linked to changes in terms of human competences,

plus tangible and intangible technical characteristics. Other authors who

were more prescriptive about service innovation processes developed

ideas about the planning and organization of these resources. Following

Edvardsson and Olsson’s framework, companies developed the right

prerequisites, which were then processed by customers, leading to high-

quality outcomes for them. Similarly, for Ramaswamy, service providers

engineered new production processes, whereas customers provided inputs

and evaluated the outputs of such processes. Finally, Shostack advises

intensive services is better captured as the negotiation over competence and (the newly-added) preference characteristics, which are possessed by all agents.

INTERFACE MATTERS28

marketers to carefully manage all the tangible evidence that can affect

the consumer’s experience of a service. Broadly speaking, then, design

in services is related to the coordination of a varied set of sociotechnical

resources, leading to innovative forms of exchange between providers

and clients.

Interface versus Infrastructure An analytical distinction introduced by many researchers is to separate

service production activities into two domains: the “interface,” which

focuses on the sociotechnical resources immediately associated with

exchanges between providers and clients, and the “infrastructure,” which

accounts for resources less directly related to that exchange. One criterion

for distinguishing these domains suggested in the literature is dislocation

in time and space. This is apparent in Ramaswamy’s restaurant example,

where meals are first ordered from and later served by waiters (the

interface comprises the customer service activities), while between

ordering and serving, the meals are prepared in the kitchen, out of the

sight of the customer (the infrastructure comprises the service operation

activities). A slightly different criterion was proposed by Shostack,

who introduced the concept of the line of visibility. This line separates

what is tangibly evident to the bodily senses of consumers (interface)

from what is hidden from them in the form of intangible elements or

processes (infrastructure). In addition, Gallouj and Weinstein allude to

a possible distinction between “what” results for clients from product

characteristics in the front-office (interface) and “how” this results from

process characteristics in the back-office (infrastructure).

The interface and the infrastructure are inextricable counterparts

of the sociotechnical resources involved in service exchange relations,

and both can be considered a concern for designers. In Edvardsson

and Olsson’s account, the company planned the interactions between

customers, staff, and physical environments happening at the exact

moment of service exchange. But they should also consider other

prerequisites, including those that must be in place months before

service provision begins (e.g., administrative systems for the allocation

of financial resources).

29INTRODUCTION

A characteristic of the interface that merits attention, but that

has not been sufficiently stressed in the literature, is the way in which

the interface actualizes the coproduction of a service, as it conveys the infrastructure and brings to fruition an exchange relation between

providers and clients. Continuing the previous example, for Edvardsson

and Olsson the development of prerequisites extends to infrastructure

resources, but the goal is to influence customers’ perception of services.

And this perception is created at the interface, when customers process

the prerequisites into outcomes for themselves. Also, for Ramaswamy the

design of new service processes includes the infrastructure, yet results in

a working service for providers only after implementation, when inputs

and outputs are actually exchanged with customers in service activities

at the interface. This preeminence of the interface is to some extent

acknowledged by Shostack when she observes that service reality, at least

for consumers, can only be known through the tangible evidence. In sum,

exchange relations between providers and clients require the mobilization

of infrastructure resources but, ultimately, are realized through the

interface. For this reason, the service interface always becomes the end-

point of design deliberations.

Materiality In this subsection, I conclude this literature study by highlighting the

materiality of the service interface. Despite the emphasis on intangibility

encountered throughout the service literature, many researchers have

commented on certain tangible aspects of the service interface as well.

For example, Shostack deems services inherently abstract and founded

on processes. But she observes that they could only be experienced by

consumers through what marketers made tangible to them. Ramaswamy,

too, who places nonphysical processes as building blocks in his framework,

later elaborates on them in terms of concrete engineering elements, such

as screen displays and other hardware of his restaurant service concept.

Gallouj and Weinstein also include tangible technical characteristics in

their characteristics sets. And for Edvardsson and Olsson, the physical/

technical environment constitutes an important element of the service

prerequisites that are processed by customers.

INTERFACE MATTERS30

That the service interface includes material artifacts and systems

can hardly be disputed. At the same time, one of the strongest convictions

of researchers has been that services are something more than—or,

indeed, anything but—a simple physical “thing.” Can it be concluded that

the service interface, in essence or for the most part, is immaterial?

A closer look at the literature shows several types of sociotechnical

resources in services that differ from the material artifacts identified

above. For example, in their prerequisite list Edvardsson and Olsson

include organization and control resources related to organizational

structure, administrative systems, and marketing management. These

resources are similar to Gallouj and Weinstein’s intangible technical

characteristics, which include financial expertise, mathematical in-

struments, economic models, and so forth. Under scrutiny, such

resources seem to be located within the infrastructure domain of the

service provider. Therefore, as stated before, these resources need to

be actualized through the service interface to affect exchange relations

with clients. Hence, Gallouj and Weinstein’s proposal that services may

be delivered by intangible technical characteristics located at the front

office appears to be unsubstantiated. The reason is that, at the moment

clients would encounter intangible technical characteristics (e.g., in the

form of mathematical instruments in consultancy services), they would

experience them through tangible manifestations (e.g., slide projections,

or words and graphs in a printed report). The point, of course, is not to

downplay the importance of intangible technical characteristics, nor to

reduce them entirely to their tangible depictions. Instead, the point is

that, for the production of services to occur, intangible resources must

be actualized through an interface that is material and available to bodily

perception.

A problem area for the idea of a material interface is the consid-

eration of humans as part of sociotechnical resources, especially where

providers and clients meet face to face. As Gallouj and Weinstein observe,

in the production of some services, providers and clients primarily

interact via skills and knowledge that might not be easily dissociated from

them. One usual way of thinking about the organization of interpersonal

encounters in services is to conceptualize human resources as abstract

31INTRODUCTION

and inherent to humans. For Edvardsson and Olsson, for example,

company staff members contribute to service production through their

knowledge, motivation, and commitment, which providers could develop

through proper recruitment and training, among other indirect ways of

influencing behavior at the service interface. Another way of dealing with

person-to-person interaction has been to pinpoint human resources of a

more concrete but extrinsic nature. For example, Shostack observes that

manageable service evidence could be found in the way contact employees

dress, what they say, and their hairstyles. Comparably, Ramaswamy

includes in the engineering requirements of new service processes the

scripts that direct the behaviors of people.

Interpersonal service encounters cannot be removed from human

subjectivity and spontaneity. However, this reality does not preclude

personal interactions in services from being shaped, in the absence of

other material means, by the embodied behaviors of providers and

clients (e.g., gestures, uttered words). What is implied here is neither a

simple “objectification” of human participation in service production, nor

an argument for manipulating such participation in the same way one

would deal with other material artifacts. Instead, the contention is that

service exchange relations between providers and clients are grounded

on the materiality of their interfaces, even in the case of interpersonal

encounters.

For design, the crux of the matter might lie not in acknowledging

the materiality of the service interface, but in understanding its

distinctive nature. From this review of the literature, it appears that every

time empirical cases are used to exemplify what goods and services are,

researchers readily associate goods with a physical thing, yet they fail to

apply an equally concrete standard to services. As a result, services are

deemed intangible (or elusive, dynamic, multifaceted, etc.), not because

they are unavailable to embodied experience, but because what their

interface conveys is predominantly not the standalone artifacts with clear object boundaries that goods are purported to be. Instead, services are primarily related to embodied human interactions, such as in Gallouj and

Weinstein’s massage therapy service; diffuse phenomena appealing to the

senses, such as the tastes, smells, and sounds in Ramaswamy’s restaurant

INTERFACE MATTERS32

service; multiple tangible elements organized over time and space, as in

Shostack’s airlines; and possibly more. The distinctive characteristic that

stands out in these cases is not intangibility, but the material heterogeneity of the interface of services when compared to goods.

This view sits close to Shostack’s concept of tangible evidence.

However, Shostack believed the true nature of services to be founded

on intangible elements. Although evidence was important for her, it

represented only a surrogate “reality” for consumers. Because Shostack

reserved the possibility of a genuine material existence for tangible

elements, which she associated with goods, she described service evidence

with the derogatory term “quasi-products.” Service evidence thus came

to be inauthentic, peripheral clues of an intangible core. The implication

of this view, accentuated later when Shostack adopted processes as the

foundation of services, is that the design of evidence could now represent

just an ancillary activity, one that creates tangible “accessories” for

immaterial services. Going beyond this view, I claim that the service

interface materializes an exchange relation between providers and clients, and that the design of the service interface, perhaps more than

anything else, is the design of the service itself. Shostack wrote three decades ago, and her work continues to inspire

researchers who seek to break free from goods-oriented paradigms by

approaching the interface as a central object of service design. A danger of

unquestionably accepting this influence resides in defining the interface

as a tangible material between providers and clients that is peripheral to

an intangible service core. In stark contrast, the client-provider interface

is crucial to service design because, ultimately, it brings new services into

being.

There is a clear tendency in the academic literature to develop

more elaborate analyses about the design of the service infrastructures

than of the interfaces. The rare discussions on service interface design

seem to arise as tangential, after-the-fact implications of planning the

infrastructure. This neglect of the interface coincides with the embedding

of design discussions primarily in service management and engineering

discourses, but also with the timid participation in service research of

design disciplines traditionally devoted to phenomena in the interface

33INTRODUCTION

domain of services (e.g., product design, interaction design, graphic

design, and others).

Outline of this ThesisThe goal of this thesis is to advance original perspectives on the service

interface that can furnish support for the design disciplines to take up new

grounds in service research and promote a fuller appreciation of design

in the service sectors. On the theoretical side, the thesis’ main backbone

is formed by research in the philosophy of technology, more specifically,

in an area known as postphenomenology. Postphenomenology is an

approach pioneered by Don Ihde that builds on the philosophical tra-

dition of phenomenology and examines the influence of material tech-

nologies on human experiencing of the world.18 An often-given example

in postphenomenological research—although not yet one regarding

service situations—is the use of eyeglasses. Eyeglasses allow people see the world through them, and from this “in-between” position they

are able transform the world as it is perceived. Similarly, instruments

such as telescopes mediate between scientists and the phenomena they

observe. Although it has been used predominantly to understand human

experience with technologies in daily life and the scientific laboratory

(e.g., Ihde 1990; Ihde 1998), in recent years significant efforts have been

made to discuss postphenomenology in design contexts as well (e.g.,

Verbeek 2005; Verbeek 2011).

This is but an elementary introduction; discussions of postphe-

nomenological principles and discoveries will be progressively elaborated

in the chapters to come, in connection with relevant service design

topics. The remainder of this thesis is structured as follows. Chapter

two introduces a theoretical framework stipulating how the service

interface may be approached from a postphenomenological perspective.

In this chapter, I build on two founding contributions for the approach

to service design that I wish to cultivate with this thesis. The first is Elena

Pacenti’s application of the interface concept as a way to define the object

of design in services. The second is Gui Bonsiepe’s phenomenological

18. For a recent introduction to postphenomenology, see Ihde (2009).

INTERFACE MATTERS34

interpretation of the practice of designing user interfaces. The analysis

begins with Pacenti but mostly centers on Bonsiepe’s work. I argue that

Bonsiepe starts from Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in order to

explain how technologies mediate human experiences of the world, using

that to corroborate an unnecessarily narrow approach to the design of

new interfaces. According to his approach, interfaces should always

be designed to become perceptually “transparent” for users. I show

however that Ihde’s standpoint, which may be taken as a critique to the

Heideggerian position, offers a more nuanced account of the ways in

which people experience interfaces in circumstances of use. By applying

a postphenomenological framework to service contexts, I describe four

possible modes of client-interface relations, all of which reject the idea

of the sheer “transparency” of interfaces: embodiment, hermeneutic,

alterity, and background. In the examples provided for each of these

modes, I also take consideration of the conclusion presented in this

introductory chapter that the service interface can be characterized by its

material heterogeneity.

The concluding half of chapter two, then, turns to the implication

of a postphenomenological perspective for the emerging practice of

service design. Following the lead of both Pacenti and Bonsiepe, I argue

that the interface concept points to an area of traditional design expertise

and that this expertise can be projected into the new application domain

of services. In addition to their proposals, I specify another line of

investigation where design needs to reflect upon established practices in

view of the particular materiality of services. Thus, chapter two concludes

with an allusion to two complementary lines of inquiry for this thesis—one

projective, the other reflexive—, which will be taken up by the empirical studies presented in the subsequent chapters.

Chapters three and four present the first empirical studies

carried out for this thesis. These chapters contain in-depth analyses of

an innovative service commercialized by Philips, named DirectLife.

DirectLife is a typical case of a growing number of services now relying

on client-provider interfaces that are predominantly based on digital

technologies. Therefore, the investigation developed in these chapters

can be called projective, insofar as designers of a service like DirectLife

35INTRODUCTION

may already draw on earlier acquired expertise coming from the fields of

interaction design, among others.

Specifically in chapter three, the argument is set as a reaction to

what I see as a growing tendency in service design research to move away

from an approach that focuses on the material interface. I address in

greater detail the argument of Daniela Sangiorgi, which holds that the

interface provides a limited perspective on service design because it fails

to integrate the sociocultural dimension embedding service experience.

Based on the postphenomenological approach introduced in chapter two,

however, I demonstrate the opposite: that the sociocultural dimension of

services can only be experienced by people in interaction with a material

interface. To substantiate this claim, I draw on a descriptive analysis

of the DirectLife service. This analysis is based on my own experiences

as a client, added to a two-month long usability study with six other

participants. This study of DirectLife also presents an opportunity to

delve deeper into postphenomenological notions that were only briefly

introduced in chapter two. In particular, I provide insight into (a) how

the service infrastructure is experienced through the material interface;

(b) how the service interface does not merely “connect” clients with

providers, but co-constitutes these entities as such; (c) how the service

interface transforms clients’ perception of their bodily and social

identities; and (d) how the adoption and use of a new service involve

complex negotiations between clients and interfaces. The conclusion is

that, instead of focusing away from it, design must better acknowledge

how service interfaces transform the social reality of clients in ways that

are worthy of careful manipulation.

Chapter four continues the analysis of the DirectLife service, but

instead of addressing the client perspective, turns to the experience of

designing one of its interfaces. This chapter starts with an overview of

empirical studies into the practices of service designers who work in

the role of consultants. I observe that these studies generally highlight

the important role materiality plays in the design process. Next to

that, I argue that some of the materials that are generated and used in

the process are especially relevant for designers because they serve as

intermediary visualizations of the service interface that is the final object

INTERFACE MATTERS36

of their activities. With the intention of clarifying how these visualizations

are interpreted from a design perspective, I present an extended review

of a line of postphenomenological studies, forefronted by Ihde and

others, that examines scientific technologies of imaging and the role

of materiality in the design process. I argue that postphenomenology

presents useful concepts for understanding how the service interface

is experienced by designers through various types of visual materials.

Empirical support for this claim comes from a study of DirectLife based

on in-depth interviews with several professionals involved in the design

of a new website interface. By describing the major phases of the design

process, running from early conceptualization to later implementation,

I advance several propositions, including (a) that design visualizations

afford multiple coherent interpretations of the service interface; (b) that

the experience of these visual materials is constituted socially, in relation

to the clients for whom the service interface is intended, as well as to

other professionals participating in the design process; and (c) that the

manipulation of materials portraying the service interface influences in

significant ways how these professionals conceive of the design project.

Chapter five presents the last empirical study done for this thesis.

The case under analysis deals with the design of a new service concept

intended to strengthen the relations between the Department of General

Practice of the Maastricht University and professionals involved in

primary care in the southern part of The Netherlands. This project was

organized by the Service Science Factory of that same University and

counted on me integrating the design team. The primary objective of this

chapter is to extend the approach developed in this thesis to situations

where the service interface is primarily not based on digital technologies, but on more immediate forms of human-to-human contact. My analysis

is geared toward explaining that interpersonal service relations also

comprehend a material interface. By addressing an interface matter

(i.e., interpersonal contact) that sits beyond the domain of expertise of

traditional design disciplines, and by reflecting on my own involvement

as a designer, this chapter engages more fully with the reflexive line of

inquiry proposed by this thesis, where design is invited to reconsider

extant practices in view of the particularities of services.

37INTRODUCTION

Chapter five also implicates a change in tactic. To this point, the

principal thesis arguments have been made by problematizing relevant

topics in the service design literature and using postphenomenology

to shed new insights on those issues. Now, the core of the argumenta-

tion turns to a critical examination of postphenomenological theory.

This variation comes with the recognition that postphenomenology,

although it illuminates the practice of service design in cases where

interfaces are embodied in digital technologies, it is more ambivalent

about the possibility of characterizing interpersonal services from that

same interface perspective. After performing a detailed interpretation

of Ihde’s notion of technique, I propose that aspects of the human body may be approached as a particular type of material artifact, but

that acknowledging this requires questioning the privileged position

given to nonhuman forms of materiality that is deeply entrenched in

postphenomenology’s methodology. The chapter closes with a discussion

of alternative proposals found in the service design literature on how to

deal with human-based services and some speculations about what a

postphenomenological perspective to the human interface may bring to

service design.

Finally, chapter six presents a discussion that seeks to consolidate

the main contribution of this thesis in a way that complements the

analysis found in this introductory chapter. While here I worked from

the “outside-in,” situating for industrial design the theme of service

interfaces in relation to a broad overview of service research, toward the

end of the thesis, this theme has matured to the point of proposing, from

the “inside-out,” what a postphenomenological perspective can add to

our present understanding about services and design.

39

Chapter 2Interface Design in Services:A Postphenomenological Approach19

Based on a critical study of the service literature, the previous chapter has

established the primary area of concentration of this thesis in the service

interface. The purpose of the present chapter is to elaborate on the service

interface from a design perspective, thus providing the theoretical basis

for the empirical investigations of subsequent chapters.

Two preceding contributions will be used as a starting point to de-

velop this approach to the design of service interfaces. The first is Elena

Pacenti’s (2004) work, which is commonly acknowledged as pioneering

in the field of service design, but rarely discussed in depth.20 Pacenti

advanced an original perspective to service design drawing on the

discipline of interaction design and on service theories in the areas of

economics and management. She justifies the appropriation of interface

design theories for thinking through services on grounds that the advent

of computer technologies in the last decades has led to significant changes

in the service sectors, especially regarding the direct involvement of users

in the delivery process.

The influence of computer technologies on design theory is visible

again in the work of Gui Bonsiepe (1999), which forms the second stepping

stone for my approach to the service interface. Bonsiepe interprets

design as a practice devoted to the creation of user interfaces, by which

he means the link between people, technologies, and actions. Bonsiepe

is in the company of others in the field of human–computer interaction

who drew substantially from Heidegger’s phenomenological philosophy

when taking the situated actions and embodied experiences of users as

19. Chapter based on Secomandi and Snelders (2013).

20. E.g., Blomkvist, Holmlid, and Segelström (2011, 309); Maffei, Mager, and Sangiorgi (2005, 1,5); Maffei et al. (2005, 59); Meroni and Sangiorgi (2011, 16–17); Pacenti and Sangiorgi (2010, 27–28); Sangiorgi (2009, 416).

INTERFACE MATTERS40

foundational for the design of new interactive technologies.21 Bonsiepe

is perhaps unique among these researchers in extrapolating his ideas to

areas beyond that of digital technologies, using the interface concept to

discuss the object and nature of design expertise in professional practice.

Thus, if on the one hand Pacenti provides a pathway for exploring

interface design as it relates to services specifically, on the other hand,

Bonsiepe invites us to rethink design expertise while adopting a phe-

nomenological perspective on the service interface. In this chapter,

I revise Bonsiepe’s approach by drawing on a criticism to Heidegger

advanced in the context of postphenomenological research. This revision

proposes a nuanced way of thinking about the design of service interfaces

and the special expertise that is required.

Pacenti’s Approach to the Service InterfaceTo the best of my knowledge, the first within the design community

to draw attention to the interface on basis of a systematic study of the

academic discourse on services was Pacenti, in her doctoral studies at

the Politecnico di Milano.22 Similarly to the findings presented in the

first chapter of the present thesis, Pacenti concludes that a defining

characteristic of services lies in the fact that they are produced in

exchanges between providers and clients. She is particularly inspired

by the concept of “service evidence,” coined by Shostack to denote all

tangible cues used by clients to evaluate a process that is organized and

rendered for them by a provider. Pacenti’s original take on Shostack’s

insight is to draw an analogy between the notion of “service evidence”

and that of “user interface” coming from the field of interaction design.

She writes:

The service can in fact be observed as a complex organizational

system or just starting from its interface. From the user’s point

of view, the image and the identity of the service (what it offers

and how it works) are realized in its interface, in what he or she

experiments, sees and feels, and of little importance for the aims

21. E.g., Dourish (2001); Ehn (1988); Fällman (2003); Winograd and Flores (1986).

22. The following analysis is based on two published summaries of her doctoral thesis (Pacenti 2004; Pacenti and Sangiorgi 2010).

41INTERFACE DESIGN IN SERVICES

of the interaction is the organizational structure that is behind

(Pacenti 2004, 158, my translation from Italian).

Pacenti argues that there are special conceptual gains from adopting

an interaction design perspective to the service interface. One is to

acknowledge the temporal dimension of the interface, while the other is to appreciate its nature as an event in potential. In both aspects, she builds on the earlier approaches to interface design set forth by Anceschi

(1992) and Montefusco (1992).

Anceschi had noted that while designers traditionally occupied

themselves with two- and three-dimensional forms, computer technologies

demanded from them the integration of a temporal dimension, where

form unfolds in open-ended dialogue with the behaviors and gestures

of a user. For Anceschi, the interface was therefore the “place of the

interaction” (1992, 40), a definition that Pacenti cites and readily converts

to services:

The service interface, in analogy to the interface of a complex

and interactive artifact, is in fact “the domain, the zone, the

scene where the interaction takes place” (Pacenti 2004, 159,

my translation from Italian).

Montefusco started with the idea that interactive artifacts involve the

actions of users, but placed greater emphasis on the part of the human

actor. According to him, without a human performance that can actualize

the interaction, the interface is plainly an “inert” material. Montefusco,

thus, endorsed the view that designers should “transcend” the physical

materiality of the interface, in order to concentrate on the user behaviors

associated with it (1992, 131). Pacenti imports the idea of a “potential

event” into her characterization of the service interface in the following

manner:

What is common between the behavior of services and that

of interactive artifacts….is, moreover, their nature as “potential

events.” Prior to the moment of fruition by a user, the service,

like the performance of a computer or a communicative artifact,

exists only in its potential form. It is only thanks to the user’s

INTERFACE MATTERS42

action that the service performance actualizes itself (Pacenti

2004, 160, my translation from Italian).

While Pacenti is inspired by these approaches in the field of interaction

design, her conception of the service interface is not limited to the user

interaction with a machine only. Instead, she sees the service interface as

comprising a “mix” of diverse elements, including aspects of the physical

environment, technical instruments, and human providers (Pacenti

2004, 161).

In the next chapter of this thesis, I will return to Pacenti for a

criticism of her conception of the service interface. I should note, however,

that Pacenti partly anticipates the ambition of this thesis in combining

theories from service research and interaction design in order to develop

an original approach to the design of service interfaces. As she proposes:

The interface concept, applied to services, allows to approximate

the behavior of services to the behavior of interactive artifacts,

and to utilize the tools developed in the discipline that deals with

the design of the latter for specifying a new set of conceptual and

operational tools for the design of services (Pacenti 2004, 159,

my translation from Italian).

Bonsiepe’s Approach to Interface DesignBonsiepe is usually remembered in design circles for his life-long

dedication to the topic of design for development.23 However, in the late

1980s, his interests also branched into the topic of human-computer

interaction (Bonsiepe 1999, 9). While working as a designer for a software

development company in the United States, Bonsiepe rediscovered the

work of Heidegger under the influence of Dreyfus (see Fathers 2003,

51).24 His Heideggerian approach to interface design was subsequently

23. E.g., Fathers (2003); Margolin (2007).

24. It is worth noting that Dreyfus was a strong disseminator of phenomenology and the philosophy of technology to computer science audiences. His interpretation of Heidegger has influenced Winograd and Flores, who, according to Leon (2005, 88), were the founders of the company Action Technologies, where Bonsiepe was employed as chief designer. Winograd and Flores also co-authored a seminal critique of the design of computer technologies under the sign of Heidegger (Winograd and Flores 1986). As made

43INTERFACE DESIGN IN SERVICES

forged in a series of articles collected in the book Interface: An Approach to Design.25

Bonsiepe’s conception of the interface in the book cited reveals a

marked influence from Heidegger’s early philosophy of technology. In a famous passage, Heidegger had described someone picking up a hammer

to perform an ordinary activity—to drive a nail into the wall. In ordinary

use, Heidegger observes, the hammer does not draw attention to itself, but

rather to what is reached through it (in this case, primarily the nail in the

wall). It functions as a tool; it is useful; it is “in-order-to” assign the person to another aspect of the world. The hammer “withdraws” in action and

acquires a kind of perceptual transparency for its user. It is, in Heidegger’s

terminology, “ready-to-hand.” However, if the hammer breaks down or

goes missing, the user’s involvement in the activity gets disturbed. When

this disturbance happens, the tool, along with its referential network (i.e.,

the project, the material it is made of, the nails) becomes conspicuous.

Now the hammer draws attention to itself, not as a useful object, but as an

obstruction for the user. It becomes “present-at-hand.”26

Bonsiepe appropriates the phenomenological insights above into

his tripartite “ontological design diagram,” which he describes as follows:

Firstly we have a user or social agent who wants to realize an

action effectively; Secondly we have a task which the user wishes

to perform, e.g. cutting bread, putting on lipstick, listening to

rock music, drinking a beer or performing a root canal operation;

clear by Bonsiepe (1999, 138–140), he admired Winograd and Flores’s book greatly, and this appreciation might have led to the influence of their views on his own approach to interface design. However, Bonsiepe’s take on Heidegger does not exhaust his reflections on the relation between the interface concept and design. The word “interface” appears in Bonsiepe’s texts as early as in a 1973 publication, where he states: “Certainly, it is not to the development of all industrial products that the industrial designer contributes his design capacities, but to those ‘interface’ product types with which the user engages in direct interaction, by manipulating or perceiving them” (my translation from Spanish). For this citation, as well as an analysis of the maturation of Bonsiepe’s thoughts on this issue prior to his publications inpired by Heidegger, see Carlsson (2004, 39–43).

25. Other editions of this book were published in Italian (1995), German (1996), Portuguese (1997), and Korean (2003).

26. This passage is based on the interpretations of Heidegger by two leading postphenom-enological philosophers of technology (Ihde 1979, 103–129; Verbeek 2005, 77–80).

INTERFACE MATTERS44

Thirdly we have a tool or artefact which the active agent needs in

order to perform this task effectively—a bread knife, a lipstick, a

walkman, a beer glass, a high-precision drill rotating at 20,000

rpm. It must now be asked how these three heterogeneous

areas—a body; a purposeful action; and artefact, or information

in an act of communication—are connected. They are linked by

the interface (Bonsiepe 1999, 28–29).

This conception of the interface is much inspired by Heidegger’s analysis

of the tool, as evidenced by the following observations. First, the interface

reveals how users are connected to other aspects in the world. Bonsiepe

illustrates this point through reference to the interaction between a

computer user and the digital information stored on that computer:

The digital data stored (on a hard disk or a CD-ROM) are coded

in the form of 0 and 1 sequences and have to be translated into

the visual domain and communicated to the user. This includes

the way commands like “search” and “find” are fed in, as well as

the design of the menu, positioning on the screen, highlighting

with colour, choice of font. All these components constitute

the interface, without which the data and actions would be

inaccessible (Bonsiepe 1999, 30).

Second, the interface defines a tool only in relation to a context of action.

Consider Bonsiepe’s analysis of the scissors:

An object only meets the criteria for being called scissors if it has

two cutting edges. They are called the effective parts of the tool.

But before the two cutting edges can become the artefact “scissors”

they need a handle in order to link the two active parts to the

human body. Only when the handle is attached is the object a pair

of scissors. The interface creates the tool (Bonsiepe 1999, 30).

Third, Bonsiepe understands the interface as establishing a context

within which objects and data are encountered as available for use; that

is, they are “ready-to-hand”:

The interface reveals the character of objects as tools and the

45INTERFACE DESIGN IN SERVICES

information contained in data. It makes objects into products,

it makes data into comprehensible information and—to use

Heidegger’s terminology—it makes ready-to-hand….as opposed

to present-at-hand…(Bonsiepe 1999, 29)

For Bonsiepe, the interface does not rest exactly in the tool itself, but in

interactions among users, actions, and tools. The main design task is to

organize these relations and thus to enable the realization of actions:

It should be emphasized that the interface is not a material

object, it is the dimension for interaction between the body,

tool and purposeful action….The interface is the central domain

on which the designer focuses attention. The design of the

interface determines the scope for action by the user of products

(Bonsiepe 1999, 29).

While Bonsiepe at first defines the interface broadly, as the “dimension of

interaction,” his concrete examples als